Radio: Opera Digest

Complete with spear-carriers and prima donnas, grand opera was launching
a mass assault on television. ABC started it with ponderous telecasts
from the Metropolitan of Otello and Der Rosenkavalier. Last week, in
the first of a series, CBS and Artistic Director Lawrence Tibbett
proved that opera could be sprightly as well as tuneful, in an
80-minute version of Bizet's Carmen on the Opera Television Theater.

Gladys Swarthout's fiery Carmen was played without the exaggerated
gestures common to the Met's gigantic stage; Tenor Robert Rounseville
brought a matinée idol's profile to Don José, but obviously...